American Saint

Francis Asbury and the Methodists

John Wigger

Casts new light on a pioneer of American Christianity.

Places Methodism in context in American history.

American Saint

Francis Asbury and the Methodists

John Wigger

Description

English-born Francis Asbury was one of the most important religious leaders in American history. Asbury single-handedly guided the creation of the American Methodist church, which became the largest Protestant denomination in nineteenth-century America, and laid the foundation of the Holiness and Pentecostal movements that flourish today. In American Saint, John Wigger has written the definitive biography of Asbury and, by extension, a revealing interpretation of the early years of the Methodist movement in America. Asbury emerges here as not merely an influential religious leader, but a fascinating character, who lived an extraordinary life. His cultural sensitivity was matched only by his ability to organize. His life of prayer and voluntary poverty were legendary, as was his generosity to the poor. He had a remarkable ability to connect with ordinary people, and he met with thousands of them as he crisscrossed the nation, riding more than one hundred and thirty thousand miles between his arrival in America in 1771 and his death in 1816. Indeed Wigger notes that Asbury was more recognized face-to-face than any other American of his day, including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

American Saint

Francis Asbury and the Methodists

John Wigger

Table of Contents

PrefaceIntroductionChapter 1. The ApprenticeChapter 2. The Young PreacherChapter 3. The Promise of DisciplineChapter 4. Southern PersuasionChapter 5. One RevolutionChapter 6. Leads to AnotherChapter 7. Looking Forward, Looking BackwardChapter 8. A New Church in a New NationChapter 9. "Such a time...was never seen before"Chaper 10. "Alas for the rich! they are so soon offended" Chapter 11. "Be not righteous over much"Chapter 12. SchismChapter 13. ReconnectingChapter 14. "Weighed in the balances"Chapter 15. "We were great too soon"Chapter 16. "Down from a Joyless height" Chapter 17. "Feel for the power"Chapter 18. "The garden of God"Chapter 19. "Like a moving fire"Chapter 20. LimitsChapter 21. "I see, I feel what is wrong in preachers and people, but I cannot make it right," Chapter 22. What God AllowsChapter 23. End of the RoadEpilogue: Bending FrankAbbreviationsNotesIndex

American Saint

Francis Asbury and the Methodists

John Wigger

Author Information

John Wigger is Professor of History at the University of Missouri.

American Saint

Francis Asbury and the Methodists

John Wigger

Reviews and Awards

"Wigger has fixed his place as the best Asbury scholar to date and one of the top historians of the American religious scene in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries."--Richard P. Heitzenrater, Methodist History

"Asbury has not lacked for biographies, but Wigger's is definitive and magisterial."--Grant Wacker, Christian Century

"Francis Asbury had an immense influence in shaping the early American Republic in that he promoted and oversaw the phenomenal growth of the fledgling Methodist movement at a rate that would soon make it America's largest Protestant denomination. John Wigger provides a definitive and illuminating biography that is to be recommended to all who wish to understand the sort of leadership that makes great religious movements succeed."--George Marsden, author of Jonathan Edwards: A Life

"Francis Asbury was one of the three or four most important religious leaders in American history, but until now he has lacked a comprehensive biography. John Wigger fills this gap splendidly. But much more than filling a gap, Wigger's rich account of the man who created American Methodism as the marvel of its age also reveals a great deal about the United States in its formative decades. This is a terrific book on a major figure."--Mark A. Noll, author of America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

"Wigger's superbly researched and clearly written biography deservedly rehabilitates one of America's unlikeliest but most significant religious leaders. From his humble beginnings in England, Francis Asbury probably did more to reshape the religious culture of the new Republic than any other individual."--David Hempton, author of Methodism: Empire of the Spirit